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Warrigal comments on Open Thread: February 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong
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So, I walked into my room, and within two seconds, I saw my laptop's desktop background change. I had the laptop set to change backgrounds every 30 minutes, so I did some calculation, and then thought, "Huh, I just consciously experienced a 1-in-1000 event."
Then the background changed again, and I realized I was looking at a screen saver that changed every five seconds.
Moral of the story: 1 in 1000 is rare enough that even if you see it, you shouldn't believe it without further investigation.
That is a truly beautiful story. I wonder how many places there are on Earth where people would appreciate this story.
No! Not for a second! I immediately began to think how this could have happened. And I realized that the clock was old and was always breaking. That the clock probably stopped some time before and the nurse coming in to the room to record the time of death would have looked at the clock and jotted down the time from that. I never made any supernatural connection, not even for a second. I just wanted to figure out how it happened.
-- Richard P Feynman, on being asked if he thought that the fact that his wife's favorite clock had stopped the moment she died was a supernatural occurrence, quoted from Al Sekel, "The Supernatural Clock"
This should be copied to the Rationality Quotes thread.
There are a lot of opportunities in the day for something to happen that might prompt you to think "wow, that's one in a thousand", though. It wouldn't have been worth wasting a moment wondering if it was coincidence unless you had some reason to suspect an alternative hypothesis, like that it changed because the mouse moved.
bit that makes no sense deleted
Exactly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
Recently posted to Reddit.
(Edit: About three days later I realized that that's a 1/100 and not a 1/1000 chance; my bad.)
I think there are less opportunities than you think. I could look at the clock and see that it's precisely on the half-hour; that's the only thing that comes to mind. Also, I can't figure out what your second paragraph is all about; I found your comment confusing overall.
I've noticed a few times when the size of a computer folder was exactly 666 MB.
AngryParsley noticed when my LW karma was exactly 666.
Apparently I even took a screenshot of that event, but I missed when I got 2^8 karma.
Second part made no sense on re-reading; I've deleted it. Sorry about that.
I'll see if I can think of some examples...